PUP hones answers to the tough questions
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, January 12, 2006
ATLANTA – Members of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity asked the tough questions about their final report Wednesday and answered them – in ways that convinced them.
The questions – collected from their presentations to Presbyterian groups since they completed their report last August – ranged from whether their proposed Authoritative Interpretation, known as Recommendation No. 5, was “local option” to whether adoption of the report as it was written will provoke a schism in the denomination.
“Reports don’t create schism,” declared Milton J. “Joe” Coalter, director of library services and a member of the faculty at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va. “People create schism.”
It was Coalter who also provided one of the short answers to the question about whether Recommendation 5 constitutes local option. That recommendation, which is part of a proposed Authoritative Interpretation that will be considered by the 217th General Assembly when it meets in June in Birmingham, proposes that ordaining bodies should have the final word on whether the constitutional “fidelity/chastity” ordination standard must be observed.
“It looks a hell of a lot like local option,” Coalter said. “But it’s not local option.”
Coalter’s point was that the ordination law is a standard – not an essential – and that the task force was merely calling for the application of historic principles that allowed ordaining bodies to consider whether ordaining bodies should be able to grant an exemption from that standard when they consider a candidate’s other qualifications and fitness for office.
The schism question generated a spirited discussion that went far beyond Coalter’s comment.
John “Mike” Loudon, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, Fla., and a long-time participant of the evangelical renewal movement in the PCUSA, called on the task force to be concerned about the possibility of schism.
“I think there are some folks teetering on the brink and have been that way for years,” Loudon said. “For those teetering on the brink, it may be the thing that pushes them over.” He urged task force members to read a new book – Given and Sent in One Love: The True Church of Jesus Christ – which was written by Gerrit Scott Dawson and Mark R. Patterson, whom he described as “very bright ministers.”
Dawson and Patterson wrote a comprehensive theological commentary that was critical of the task force’s report, while proposing Biblical alternatives for restoring the peace, unity and purity of the denomination. Dawson is the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Baton Rouge, La., and Patterson is the senior pastor of Community Presbyterian Church in Ventura, Calif.
But while Dawson and Patterson shored up their response with detailed Biblical analysis, the task force’s question-and-answer discussion included few references to Scripture – and none regarding homosexuality.
Vicky Curtiss, a minister in Portland, Ore., offered another short answer to the schism question. “We honestly believe what we recommend.”
William Stacy Johnson, a member of the faculty at Princeton Theological Seminary, said, “It seems to me the real issue is not the report. It’s really differing judgments about what level of theological diversity is acceptable.”
Johnson said the task force’s proposed Authoritative Interpretation reflects a “polity that is virtually identical to the polity” of the conservative Presbyterian Church in America, a denomination that broke off from the mainline Southern denomination in 1972.
“In the PCA, you’re dealing with the same polity, but there is more an ethos of uniformity in which that polity works,” Johnson said. “We don’t have that ethos. If you’re of that mindset, you want certain rules to set the boundaries. The fact that we are taking the approach of traditional Presbyterians for some folks is not enough. How much breadth in the spectrum do you want to tolerate? In our report, tolerance is not enough, but I have to somehow attempt to embody the koinonia that is a gift of the spirit. What is the vision of koinonia that they’re holding out?”
Barbara Wheeler, president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, suggested a different form for the question about schism: “What happens if this report is not accepted? We’re back to an indefinite number of years of wars over overtures and amendments. The question isn’t can there be disengagement where the status quo is accepted by everybody. The answer is no. We will have an engagement in one form or another.”
In all, the task force members dealt with more than 30 questions during their discussion. Most had been listed on a handout prepared by Wheeler, who said they were based on questions raised during her presentations to Presbyterian groups.
While members of the task force said response to their presentations were generally positive, both Wheeler and Jack Haberer of The Presbyterian Outlook called on them to be prepared to answer tough questions.
“I have picked up some frustration with the inability to have follow-up questions,” Haberer said. “We may not have answered exactly what they are asking.”
“I’m very concerned that we create a sense that we’re not trying to orchestrate things,” said Mark Achtemeier, a professor of systematic theology at Dubuque Theological Seminary. “At all of mine, we have just opened it up on the floor. You get a few speeches once in a while. You have to be prepared to handle those things tactfully.”
It was Achtemeier who made the only Scriptural reference as a means of answering questions. He cited Philippians 2 as a model for Christians, with “Christ setting aside his divine prerogatives to be in communion with sinners. You see that repeated again and again.”